All the Year Round
by PenNameSmith
Summary: In which a year goes by, more or less, with a story told for every season. The stormy horrors of Halloween, the trials and tribulations of Mindy From The Network, the journey of Mr. Carrot, and a grand midsummer day's adventure all await you within . . .
1. Autumn

**1.**

**Autumn**

_In which Bolt complains, _

_Mittens has issues, _

_And Penny does her best to weather the storm_

_

* * *

_

It was the end of October and there was a cat on the roof.

The cloudy skies were burning, softly; a deep red-orange as the sun sank down over the edge of the horizon and dusk crept on. The wind carried just the slightest hint of the chilly months to come, and the air smelled like a mix of well-worn dreams and seasoned sweetness.

Or at least from the top of the roof it did. Mittens rolled over, thoughtfully. Wasn't there a poem that went like that? _The wind doth taste of bittersweet, like jasper wine and sugar_ . . . Now, how did the rest of it go? Mittens thought about it for a moment. Something about feet, she was fairly sure. She shrugged to herself. It didn't matter, really.

Mittens generally wasn't the type for reflection of that sort, but she was a cat, and given to letting her mind wander when she had nothing in particular to do. Which was often. The old shingles on top of the farmhouse were especially inviting this time of year, leaking the warmth they'd gathered up during the day long into the evening. Not to mention, the view was astounding; hills and farmland stretching out as far as the eye could see, all the more beautiful for having taken on the rich orange and brown tones that settled over everything in autumn.

The only problem with it all, in fact, was the very reason Mittens had come out to the roof in the first place, which was currently scrabbling at the window behind her and whining in pitiful earnest.

She didn't dare turn around. The scrabbling stopped, and then there was a dull, frustrated _thud_. After a moment or two of mopey silence, she heard his voice, soft and muffled from the other side of the glass:

"I _mean _it, Mittens! You have to help me out here. I look like I got eaten by a craft fair!"

The cat remained resolute, staring unwaveringly at the sunset. Behind her, the scrabbling at the glass resumed.

"Mittens, I am _not_ okay with this!"

Mittens sighed, rolled her eyes, and gave up. It wasn't as though she could really ignore the situation for much longer anyway. She stretched, stood up, turned around, and did her absolute best to hold back a snorting laugh. She didn't quite manage it, and the resulting sound was a sort of wheezing snicker. She grinned, hopelessly.

The dog on the other side of the window returned her expression with a look of miserable impatience: Eyes narrowed, nose wrinkled, the edges of his mouth turned down in a despondent doggy-frown. Unfortunately, from Mittens' perspective, this only added yet another layer of comedy to the situation and she choked out a louder guffaw. Bolt's complaint hadn't been all that far off, actually; he really did look like the victim of some sort of overly aggressive rummage sale: An ill-fitting, red knit dog sweater was pulled over his shoulders, done up with comically huge buttons. A pair of plastic reindeer antlers was tied to his head, lopsidedly, and a red foam clown nose obscured the end of his snout.

He sighed. "This isn't funny, Mittens."

"Yes," she replied, smirking. "Yes, it is. Come on, Bolt, cheer up. I swear, it's like you've got no Halloween spirit at all, you know?" She nosed the window open and joined him inside, jumping lightly from the sill to the end of Penny's bed, where he was sitting. She strolled around Bolt in a circle, admiring the dog's costume with an earnestly repressed expression of amusement. "Forget about it, I swear, there'll be people out there tonight with sillier costumes than yours – _people_, mind you, who actually _decided_ to dress up like that. Nobody'll even notice you, Wags."

"But . . . but this isn't even _seasonal_! This holiday is supposed to be about, about ghosts and stuff. Right? So why am I dressed up like a Christmas ornament?"

Mittens tilted her head. "Nah, that's not it. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be, you know, the ghost dog. With the nose, you know? From whatever it was, that movie Rhino was watching the other day. Very appropriate. Very seasonal."

Bolt frowned, and tugged at the wool of his shirt. "I don't think he had a _sweater_, Mittens."

Mittens shrugged. "Well, it's gonna be chilly out tonight. And the sweater was on sale, as I understand it, which is to say there's no way you're going to escape wearing it. Look, it's only one night. Costumes and Halloween – it's just how things work."

Bolt eyed her suspiciously. "_You're_ not wearing a costume."

Mittens stretched, languidly, and hopped to the floor. The bell on her collar jingled. "I'm an _accessory_, Bolt," she explained, heading for the door. "Penny's going to be a witch. What sort of costume would that be if she didn't have a black cat to follow her around, huh? Now, cheer up, you're ruining the holiday. Just think about next year. We'll get Penny to dress you up as, I dunno, Batman, maybe." The thought seemed to amuse her. "That'd be nice – then I wouldn't have to wear a costume at all again."

"What?"

"Nothing. Now, c'mon, Penny wanted to leave before it got too dark."

She strolled out the door. Bolt sat there for a moment, mouth open, trying to think of something to say back, but ultimately came up with nothing. He ran after her out the door, trotting down the hallway outside with an increasing sense of desperation. He caught up with Mittens and kept pace with her as she strode coolly onward.

"Well, at least you're not having any trouble settling in," he said. "I know you're kind of iffy with the whole 'people' thing."

Mittens bristled, slightly. "Hey, don't flatter yourself, this is still only tentative residence, alright? I was ready to pack it in the second you got Penny out of the fire. Why would I want all the complications of domesticity anyway, huh?" She spoke quickly, and her voice had turned brusquer than what Bolt was used to these days – the alleyways seeping back in, for a moment. Mittens frowned, distractedly, carefully avoiding eye contact with the dog beside her.

They started down the stairs. "But you're here now," Bolt said.

"Well, sure, yeah, because you tried to bite the hand off of every orderly that wanted to get me out of the room." Mittens glared across at Bolt, but the look wasn't nearly as sincere as she probably thought it was. Bolt snorted.

"Yeah, after you _followed_ us all the way to the hospital."

"I – " Mittens faltered. "I only did that to make sure _you_ were all right. I couldn't just leave something like that up to chance, could I? I mean, you came back for me, so fair's fair. Don't think it goes any farther than that. Now quit yammering, I _told _you I was just – "

They'd reached the bottom of the stairs. Mittens halted, mid-sentence, yelping in surprise as she was plucked up from the floor.

"There you are! I was wondering where you two had gotten off to."

Mittens had been lifted off the ground by a witch in miniature: Penny, who, like Bolt, was already outfitted in her full Halloween regalia. It was actually a fairly impressive costume, considering she'd insisted on making it herself. The black dress was the reincarnation of an old tablecloth, carefully re-cut for maximum frilly spookiness. The broom was just the broom from the store cupboard, but with a few strands strategically bent in a credibly eccentric manner.

And then, of course, there was the hat, which she had stolen from the costume department on the day she left the studio, because it was a _nice_ hat that nobody ever used and she thought it had been a shame that it always went to waste like that. That was her explanation, at least, though whatever the reason really was it had turned out to be a handy bit of foresight all the same. She wore it at an angle, so that it swooped mysteriously across her face while still leaving enough room on the left side for her to actually see.

Penny held mittens and scratched her affectionately behind the ears. The cat endured it with as much dignity as she could, though she was quick to leap back to the ground when she was finally released. She drew up against Bolt, unconsciously hunkering down behind him.

Penny rolled her eyes. "Aw, come on, I was just trying to say hello. What sort of a witch's cat are you?"

Mittens hesitated, seeming reluctant to venture away from Bolt's shoulder, but after a moment she relented and took her place at Penny's side. The girl smiled.

"_That's_ better. Now, let's go, I want to get an early start, okay? Come on, Bolty!"

She gently herded the animals out of the room with the end of the broom. Bolt realized that there was nothing for it – he'd tried his best, but there was no getting out of this one. He still didn't quite believe Mittens that nobody would notice him, ridiculously and unseasonably dressed as he was, but there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it now. He grimaced, and did his best to think optimistically. It was just for one night, after all.

What was the worst that could happen?

* * *

An hour and a half later, Penny was finally starting to relax. Slightly.

Considering the number of things that could potentially go wrong when one was wearing black on Halloween night _and_ bringing a cadre of animals along with, things were going remarkably well. So far, the biggest surprise had been Rhino stowing away in the plastic Jack-O-Lantern that they'd been using to carry all of the candy, and even he'd managed to stay remarkably well behaved. Other than that, everyone they'd run into had been perfectly friendly, few of them that there were (trick-or-treaters were scarce out here in the boonies, after all), and all of the animals seemed to be staying in good spirits.

And, so far, only three people had asked for her autograph. Thinking about that, Penny felt at the pen behind her ear. She'd gotten used to always keeping one there, but she still couldn't help feeling a little bit annoyed on the occasions that she wound up actually needing it. She was doing her best to aim for something a _bit_ less odious than 'former child star' when it came to defining herself, after all, and that wasn't going to be easy if people kept on _recognizing_ her.

Well, that was just something that couldn't be helped, not at the moment anyway. Penny pushed the thought from her head, choosing to concentrate instead on the newest lantern-lit house looming up at them from out of the cloudy night. Houses like that were a welcome sight out here, considering that "next door" could mean anything from a few dozen feet to half a mile away. They were also about the only source of light, bar Penny's flashlight. The skies were dark with clouds, and the last bits of moon and starlight had been swallowed up even before it had begun.

They reached the house. As everyone marched up the porch steps, Penny noticed for the first time that the carved pumpkins and electric lights was actually the only light coming out of the house; the windows were all dark. A large, plastic bowl, likely expendable, stood to one side of the welcome mat, filled about a third of the way up with discount candy. Bolt approached the bowl and sniffed curiously at it. Mittens seemed content to keep her distance. There was a helpful note taped to the rim of the bowl inviting potential trick-or-treaters to help themselves to the candy inside.

Penny shrugged, and plucked a candy bar out of the bowl. It was inevitable, really; no Halloween was complete without at least one encounter with That House, the one with people lazy enough that they reduced the candy to a do-it-yourself task. To be fair, it was at least more honorable than the houses with the audacity to stay _completely_ dark on Halloween night. Rhino, who was still riding inside of the plastic Jack-O-Lantern, accepted the new arrival with a dubious glare. He considered it for a moment, and then pushed it to the side in noninterest.

They all turned, and started back down the porch steps. Before everyone could march off in search of the next treat-offering house, however, a small, wet droplet splashed onto Bolt's nose. He yelped in surprise.

Penny halted, and looked up towards the sky. She held out a hand, and, sure enough, more raindrops landed on it. At her feet, Bolt gave another confused bark. Mittens drew up beside him and made a displeased, apprehensive noise as she stared up at the clouds above. Within seconds, the first few drops were joined, and the sound of rain hitting the ground grew steadily louder.

"Oh, great," Penny said, grimacing. Well, she certainly hadn't counted on _that_. As the rain began to fall harder, she yanked her hat farther down – for all the protection that offered – scooped Rhino and the plastic Jack-O-Lantern up in her arms, and dashed off, with Bolt and Mittens close at her heels, desperate for somewhere to get out of the rain. The house was no good; nobody was inside and the porch roof looked so worn-out and leaky that it hardly offered any protection at all. As Penny ran around the back of the house, however, a welcome sight met her.

"There's a barn around back!" she yelled, pointing. "Come on!" Penny put on an extra burst of speed, herding the animals in front of her as they ran for the open doors of the old building in front of them. Just as they reached it, there was a roar of water, and the shower turned into a downpour. They all made it inside just in time, Mittens yowling irritably as Penny shooed her through the door. The door swung loosely shut behind them, and the sound of the rain was muffled as they escaped into the welcome dryness of the barn.

It was dark inside, and the only light came from Penny's flashlight, but that was enough. The barn roof leaked, but only in a few places, and it was dry and comfortable enough that they could all sit down on the floor. Other than Penny and the animals, the barn was empty; it clearly hadn't actually been used as a barn for years. Instead, it simply stood empty, just like the one out behind Penny's own house. Well, Penny thought, at least it was coming in handy now. She swung her light around the room, examining the cobwebbed, corners, and finally letting it rest on the animals at her feet.

Mittens looked thoroughly nonplussed. Bolt was walking around in little circles, casually but persistently chasing a loose thread dangling off of his sweater. Rhino had buried himself beneath the candy, and didn't look as though he'd be moving anytime soon.

Penny sighed. Well, it certainly wasn't the _worst_ that could have happened, but it certainly put them all at a disadvantage. For one thing, they were stuck in the barn without an umbrella, and it seemed highly unlikely to Penny that there would be one in there. Then again, they couldn't just sit out the storm. For all Penny knew, it might last all night, and her mother was probably already worried sick just because of the rain alone.

While she wondered about what to do, Penny noticed that Bolt had wandered back over to the doors, nosing cautiously at the rain outside. When he saw Penny watching him, he trotted over to her, looking back towards the door plaintively. He whined, quietly.

Well, that was about typical. Penny scratched Bolt behind the ears.

"Yeah, I get it," she said. "We're stuck here without an umbrella, but I guess you kind of figured that out, huh?"

Bolt barked, happily. She should have known the chance to be heroic would have cheered him up. Mittens looked apprehensive; somehow, Penny got the distinct feeling that, in one way or another, the cat was hardly unfamiliar to this sort of situation either.

"Alright," Penny said, turning her attention back to Bolt. "If you really think you can do it, I need you to run back home, grab an umbrella, and come back here with it as fast as you can." She picked up Mittens, got to her feet, and pushed the barn door open far enough that Bolt could get outside. "Be careful, okay Bolt? We'll be waiting here for you."

Bolt barked, again, dutifully, and then he turned and bounded out into the rain. The moment he left, Mittens jumped out of Penny's arms and tried to run after him, but halted the when she reached the doors. The pouring rain outside stopped her, and she glared at it with a look of pronounced frustration.

After a while, Mittens turned around and offered Penny the same expression. Penny shrugged, defensively.

"What?" she said. "I wasn't about to try and stop him. You know what he's like."

The cat looked down. Penny thought about what she'd just said and laughed, lightly. "_Do _you know what he's like?" she wondered, absently. She took off her hat and scratched her head, looking at Mittens curiously. She realized, somewhat belatedly, just how little she actually knew about the cat.

Penny sat down, still watching Mittens. She voiced her thoughts. "I mean, _something _must have happened to make him defend you like he did back at the hospital. I'm actually kind of jealous, really. I mean, you probably know all about what happened when he ran off. I know _I'll_ never be able to figure that one out."

Mittens gave her an unreadable look, and then turned back to the storm outside, looking worried.

"Oh, come on," Penny protested, rolling her eyes. "He'll be _fine_. I don't think Bolt would ever let a little rain stop him. Now come back over here, you'll get cold standing in the door like that."

It was enough to make Mittens look back around. Penny crossed the distance between them and picked her up. The cat resisted, again, but Penny held on resolutely.

"Oh, come on, you can't just spend all your time hanging onto Bolt's shoulder. I know the feeling, but sooner or later you've gotta realize that there are other people in the house that are perfectly willing to pay attention to you, mysterious origins or not."

Mittens made a noise that might have constituted a reluctant agreement.

"Exactly," Penny said. She sat on the floor of the barn, and set Mittens down gently across from her. She patted the cat affectionately on the head. "Now, if we're gonna bond, I don't see why a night stuck in a barn in the rain shouldn't be the perfect time for it."

Mittens meowed.

Penny smiled, warmly. "That's the spirit," she said, "I suppose that's as good a place to start as any."

* * *

The rain was significantly wetter than Bolt had been expecting, though now that he thought about it the dog realized he wasn't entirely sure what it was he _had_ been expecting in the first place. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he fervently hoped that at least the rain might ruin his sweater enough that he'd never have to wear the scratchy, ugly thing ever again.

As he thought about it, Bolt suddenly realized that there was a new, unfamiliar weight in his collar that hadn't been there before. He stopped, skidding to a muddy halt in the middle of the rain, poking at whatever was inside of his collar. He started in surprise as Rhino burst forth, spluttering.

"Aha!" the hamster shouted, triumphantly. "So _that's_ where the exit was. Well, I guess we know the score now, sweater: Rhino, one. Nefarious wooly garment, _zero_." Rhino cackled, and then settled back into the sweater's collar with his head sticking out, sheltered from the rain underneath Bolt's chin.

Bolt sighed. "Rhino? What are you doing here? You were supposed to stay back at the barn."

"Don't be ridiculous," Rhino said. "This is a dangerous mission. You'll need backup! I grabbed onto your sweater when you left the barn, so that I could help."

Bolt started moving again, trotting on through the rain. "Alright," he sighed, "But I don't think this is going to be very complicated. All we have to do is find an umbrella and then get back to the barn."

"Of course! A retrieval mission." The hamster looked thoughtful. "_Stealth_ will be required, naturally."

"Not really," Bolt replied. He kept his attention on the road ahead, watching out for the familiar lights of Penny's house. "And besides," he continued, "I don't think stealth would really even be _possible_ the way I'm dressed right now."

"Ah, we'd make it work." Rhino said. "I've seen dogs who looked _way_ weirder than you do right now."

"I'll bet you have, Rhino." Bolt squinted. Was _that_ the house? No, no, it wasn't. It was just so hard to see anything through the rain like this.

"I mean it. I saw a _green_ dog once."

"That's . . . that's nice, Rhino."

"No, seriously!" The hamster was resolute. "He was green, and he had a zipper. And he kept screaming about Mexican food, or something. I mean, compared to that, you're practically invisible, right?"

Bolt kept running. "Yeah, probably. I guess I appreciate the thought, at least. Now, keep your eyes out for Penny's house, okay? I'm pretty sure we're getting close, but everything looks the same out here and it would help to have somebody else keeping watch."

"Absolutely!" Rhino saluted, and leaned forward intently, eyes focused on the muddy road ahead.

Thankful for the momentary respite, Bolt turned his attention back to the task at hand. The rain was coming down even harder, now, and he could barely see. Bolt wondered if he'd made a good decision; this rain wasn't like anything he'd ever been through before. He was still getting used to the fact that studio special effects and the real world were entirely different things, after all, and more often than not that resulted in him not entirely thinking things through.

Well, he thought, he was here now. Out in the rain, whether he liked it or not. Mission: Umbrella.

Bolt wondered, for more than a moment, just how well Mittens was coping stuck alone in a room with Penny. After considering the notion for a while, he shuddered, and wondered if maybe the storm _was_ preferable after all.

* * *

" . . . So anyway, that's how I wound up joining Sovereign Entertainment in the first place. It's ridiculous, right?" Penny watched the cat sitting across from her hopefully.

Mittens' expression remained blank.

Penny sighed. " . . . Though I guess not quite as ridiculous as unloading my life story onto a cat." She leaned her head on her hand and stared at Mittens. "So what's your story, then, huh?"

Mittens made an annoyed sound, and rolled onto her side, suddenly fascinated by a dust bunny on the floor next to her.

"Yeah, I figured it would be something like that," Penny said, looking away. "Honestly, though, it really would be nice to know what your story actually is. I mean, obviously you and Bolt went through _something_ together. And the vet said you'd already been declawed, so you can't have been a stray all your life, right?"

That seemed to have an effect. Mittens froze, suddenly, at Penny's words. She was still lying on the ground, but now instead of radiating genuine noninterest she was holding perfectly still, looking for all the world like she was trying _very_ deliberately to _look _uninterested. It wasn't quite working. Penny leaned forward, watching the cat and doing her best to try and understand her. It wasn't like Mittens was offering a whole lot of hints, after all.

Not deliberately, anyway.

Mittens, meanwhile, was still very pointedly not moving. Penny reached out experimentally, but the cat bristled and squirmed away from her. She retreated back a few feet, then sat up again and offered Penny an impatient cat-glare. Penny sighed. She'd have to try another approach, it seemed. Very, very carefully, Penny scooted forward, trying to close the gap between Mittens and herself as gently as possible. She watched the cat, carefully, doing her best to try and read what her eyes were saying.

Well, it wasn't _that_ hard. A declawed stray cat who didn't trust humans. You didn't have to be a genius to figure that one out.

"Something happened, didn't it?" Penny asked, finally. "With whoever you used to live with, I mean."

There was a change in Mittens' eyes. Not much, but enough. Penny leaned back, a sympathetic expression on her face, and she could tell, somehow, that the cat had realized her slip. Mittens scowled, and turned to try and retreat even farther into the darker corners of the barn. Penny stopped her, reaching out and putting her hand on the cat's back as gently as she could manage. She could feel the cat tensing, nervously, but she did her best to stay resolute all the same. Mittens looked at her, accusingly.

"Oh, come on," Penny said. "How do you _think _I knew? I'm not stupid, you know. Declawed cats don't just _decide_ to become strays. It's not hard to figure out. Now calm down, okay? You can't go lumping humans together just because some crowd of morons didn't appreciate you for what you were. I just want to be your friend."

Mittens hesitated, and then, slowly, very slowly, she began to relax under Penny's hand, if only slightly. Penny smiled.

"That's better," she said, gently picking Mittens up and setting her down in her lap. The cat didn't resist, this time. Penny stroked her gently between the ears.

"Now, look," Penny said. "I don't know what happened to you, and obviously I never will. But that doesn't matter, alright? What does matter is that you clearly mean something to Bolt, and I can tell that he means something to you. I wish I could know what happened when he left, but I can't. But that doesn't matter either, because whatever it was I know you must have been part of how he managed to get back. And I can't say for certain, but I have a feeling that you might even have been part of _why_ he came back." She paused, and looked at Mittens sincerely. " . . . And I'll _always_ be grateful to you for that."

Mittens remained quiet. She made no sound, instead, she simply curled up tighter, silently trying to burrow deeper into the girl's lap. Penny obliged her.

"There, see?" Penny said. "It's not that hard. It's okay if Bolt is the most important part of it to you, but we're all a big family now, alright? I just want you to understand that. You'll _always_ have a home with us. I promise you we'll never leave."

For the longest time, the cat in her lap didn't make the slightest noise.

Penny sat in silence, and then sighed heavily.

" . . . And here I am trying to give emotional counseling to a _cat_," she said, rolling her eyes. "Hollywood messed me up good, I can tell."

Her tone was lost on Mittens, however. Something about the cat's countenance had changed at the mention of the word _home_, but she'd stayed quiet nevertheless. Now, though, while Penny laughed to herself about her predicament, Mittens finally let herself melt completely into the girl's arms, and with what seemed almost like a sigh of relief, began to purr.

It was a quiet, gentle noise, but it was enough.

Penny relaxed, happily, content that she'd finally managed to do something right by the cat.

For the longest time Mittens' purring was the only sound in the dark barn, and Penny simply sat there, stroking the cat fondly. Half an hour later, just as Penny's foot was starting to fall asleep, there was the sound of old, rusty hinges swinging open, and the noise from the rain outside grew louder. Penny looked over to the barns doors, which stood open once again, and shone her flashlight on the newcomer.

Bolt stood in the doorway, thoroughly soaked, with a puddle and a hamster dripping off of his sweater. His false nose was gone, and one of the antlers was lopsided, but other than a great deal of mud Bolt himself was safe and sound. He trotted through the door and, with a triumphant look on his face, dropped the umbrella he was holding in his mouth at Penny's feet.

The sound it made when it hit the floor was the second-best thing she'd heard all night.

* * *

Much later, home and dry again, they all stood on the porch and watched the rain as it continued to fall. Penny had changed back to her normal clothes, and Bolt, even more happily, was at last free of his ugly, unseasonal sweater. He stood at the edge of the porch, nose in the rain, cheerfully letting the water splash across his face. Penny stood behind him, with Mittens dangling happily from her arms.

Bolt turned away from the rain for a moment, and watched the two of them, curiously.

"You look awfully comfortable for 'tentative residence,' he said, glancing at Mittens with a smile.

"Tentative?" Mittens replied, through a blissful, sleepy expression. "Who said tentative? You're stuck with me, Wags, whether you like it or not. You all are."

Bolt turned back to the rain, happily. "I think I can live with that."

They all stood there quietly, then, watching the rain, and feeling safe and complete. Admittedly, when the lightning started, they let themselves be frightened, but only for a moment before they went back inside where it was dry and warm. It seemed appropriate, really; it was just the sort of night that needed a healthy scare or two.

It _was_ Halloween, after all.


	2. Winter

**2.**

**Winter**

_In which Dr. Calico gets bored, _

_The animals get ghostly, _

_And Mindy From the Network gets stuck singing the same old Christmas Carol._

_

* * *

_

Winter was just beginning, and a light snow was starting to fall from the sky.

. . . Which was not entirely indicative of the truth of the situation. While it was indeed winter, it was also a balmy, cloudless day in Hollywood, and the snow in question was made of shredded Styrofoam, which was lousy for making snowballs and was impossible to get off of your clothes once it was stuck there.

Mindy From The Network had learned this fact the hard way, and it was not doing anything to improve her mood.

She wondered, angrily, to herself, just whose stupid idiot idea it had been to do a holiday episode in the first place. And then: Oh, right. Hers. But then again, it wasn't as though she had much choice in the matter. Ratings were plummeting; half of the target demographic wouldn't stop complaining about the new Penny and _everybody_ hated the stupid aliens. _That_, at least, hadn't been Mindy's idea, though for some reason she couldn't quite manage to remember just whose it had been.

That wasn't really important, though. What was important was ratings, and when one was starting to get desperate right around Christmastime, well, it wasn't that hard to think up what a potential solution might be.

. . . Hopefully, anyway. Mindy hadn't exactly checked how Eighteen-To-Thirty-Five-Year-Olds were reacting to saccharine holiday specials these days, but she rather fervently hoped that it wasn't poorly.

Of course, at the moment it was less how the sponsors would react to even the slightest bump in the ratings that concerned Mindy, and more the silly, stupid, statically charged Styrofoam snow. She'd managed to get most of it off with a few quick sweeps of her hands, but of course there was still that last little bit that just wouldn't come off, no matter how hard she tried. She became so absorbed in her task as she stomped through the studio hallways, in fact, that after a while Mindy stopped paying attention to where she was going, taking random turns through the winding, linoleum-floored hallways.

This, most likely, was the reason that Mindy From The Network was somewhat taken off guard when she finally looked up and found herself, unexpectedly, deep within the lair of the world's most dangerous and influential supervillain.

After examining her surroundings for a moment, Mindy concluded that they were substantially less impressive with the blinky lights and sound effects turned off.

Nevertheless, it was still something to look at – Dr. Calico's headquarters was probably the most expensive set they had on the show, and it at least lived up to that standard. It was everything you could possibly want for taking over the world, really. A great big fancy computer-screen wall at one end, plenty of space for the minions to hang around in their off-time, and course a great big set of stairs leading up to a surprisingly ergonomic – yet definitively evil – spinning office chair. For the man himself, naturally.

Mindy flicked the last lingering bit of Styrofoam snow off of her shoulder, putting as much vehemence into the action as she could manage. She turned and prepared to head back to where she had been originally off to in the first place – she couldn't quite remember what that was, exactly, but it probably had something to do with yelling at the director – but something made her hesitate.

It probably had something to do with the fact that she'd never actually seen this set when she wasn't on the far end of a monitor screen. Even an executive could be mildly curious about that sort of thing.

Not _very_, of course, but mildly wasn't unreasonable.

Mindy glanced around the dark set, quickly, to make sure that nobody was watching, and then began walking up the stairs. They were made of plywood, but the paint job that was supposed to make them look like chrome was admirably convincing.

And then she reached the top of the stairs, and, of course, the chair. Somehow, unlike the rest of the set, it looked just as impressive close up. They had probably spent far too much money on it, Mindy thought to herself aimlessly. She prodded the chair, and it spun, squeaking slightly in a not-very evil way.

"It usually stays comfortable up until the ninth take or so."

Mindy yelled, whirled around, and only just managed to avoid falling all the way back down the stairs. She glared at the tall, elderly man who had appeared behind her. He was dressed in a suit, aimlessly adjusting his tie and blinking, rapidly, in an earnest attempt to get rid of the irritation from the green contact lens in his right eye.

Mindy regained her balance. "What are you doing here, Malcolm?" she demanded, still somewhat shaken.

Malcolm – Dr. Calico's actor, and an admittedly friendly sort when out of character – strolled past her and sat down in the chair, flashing a wide smile. "Well, it would be a bit unusual if I was somewhere else, now wouldn't it? Unless we're shooting the exciting new episode where Dr. Calico files his change of address and then moves to Nantucket."

"In your dreams, Malcolm," Mindy said, flatly. "Dr. Calico is still busy stealing Christmas, I'm afraid." Her eyes drifted to the old man's hand; he was holding a letter. "Who's that from?"

"Penny," he replied, opening the envelope and scanning through its contents. "The old one, I mean. She sends letters, sometimes."

"Why?"

Malcolm looked up, and raised an eyebrow. "We're friends. We keep in touch. You don't need much more reason than that, though I suppose you wouldn't know much about that."

"I have friends," Mindy said, a bit too quickly.

Malcolm yawned. "I'm sure you do, Mindy. You're drifting from my original point, though, which is that I still don't understand the point of a Christmas episode. Isn't the show ridiculous enough as it is?"

"Ratings, Malcolm, are more important than artistic integrity at a time like this. And holiday specials get ratings. Now stop blabbering and brush up your evil laugh; if you're here they're probably getting ready to do the scene where Dr. Calico plots to rob all the presents from the city orphanage."

Malcolm sighed, and sank back in his chair. "Oh, boundless _joy_."

"Oh, come on," Mindy said. "It won't be that bad. And the director's been talking about how he always wanted to do an episode like this."

Malcolm snorted. "The director is an idiot, Mindy. It was bad enough before when we had to do everything in one take, but now that we've got the new dog and we have the freedom to reshoot, he makes us do every scene a thousand times over!"

Mindy shrugged. "Well, if he's so awful, why did you agree to work for him?"

The elderly actor looked sheepish for a moment. "Ah," he said. "Well. That's a funny story actually. I met him at a charity dinner, you see – I was stupendously drunk, you understand, and I mistook him for David Tennant. So I went over, and I – "

"Uh, I think I get the gist of it Malcolm." Mindy turned back to her clipboard. "Look, I'm sorry to leave so soon but I'm sure there, uh, _has_ to be somewhere else I need to be at the moment."

"Granted," Malcolm continued, undeterred, "It was an important lesson, even if I did have to learn it the hard way. I learn most of my lessons the hard way, actually, now that I think about it." He started counting off on his fingers. "Don't play with matches, never forget anything in a taxi, never hum 'Singin' in the Rain' near balding men in wheelchairs . . . "

He kept talking, but Mindy tuned it out. She was trying to remember just what it was she had been doing before getting sidetracked in the first place. What had it been? Getting water? Updating the script? No, no, wait, she remembered now – she needed to go yell at the post-production guys; they were taking too long getting the big chase scene finished up, and they needed that for the teaser ads. She flipped through the pages on her clipboard, trying to figure out where any of them would be in the studio this time of day. After a moment, she glanced back up at Malcolm. He was still talking.

"Oh," he said, looking distracted. "And never, _ever_ eat rarebit before bed, that was the last one. Last time I did _that_ I had this utterly barmy nightmare about Lori Petty and a bunch of mutant kangaroos."

"That's nice, Malcolm," Mindy said, turning away. "But I have actually important things to worry about, if you don't mind. So if it's all right with you, I'm just going to head out and try to find the people I need to talk to. You just stay here and work on making this a holiday special all your friends will want to watch."

"Actually, all of _my_ friends are probably going to be watching _The End of Ti_ – "

"You know what I meant." Mindy began to walk down the stairs, not looking back.

"I think you'll find that ratings aren't everything, Mindy," Malcolm called after her as she left. "If you keep thinking like that it'll just consume you."

"Right now, Malcolm, ratings _are_ everything, at least for the sponsors who're the only reason any of us have jobs."

Malcolm shrugged. "Have it your own way, then," he said. Mindy harrumphed, and walked out the door, shoving her way past a bemused-looking camera crew and the director as she went. As she went, the director tried to speak to her.

"Er," he said. "Mindy, you wouldn't happen to have seen – "

"No," Mindy replied, without waiting for him to finish, and turned a corner out of sight.

* * *

An hour and a half later, Mindy From The Network was having absolutely no luck whatsoever finding the people she needed to yell at. She pondered, briefly, whether or not they were hiding from her. After thinking about it for a moment, she decided that if they were, then she approved of them fearing her but not of being this unhelpful. She paused and made a mental note to chew them out for that, too.

She was on the city set now, and while Mindy knew that most of the offices and tech rooms could be accessed through the sets, she could never remember precisely which rooms connected to which sets. She groaned in frustration and admitted to herself, begrudgingly, that she was lost again. She tried to think of the last time she had been on this set – it hadn't been _that _long ago – and just where the doors might take her. After this experiment yielded nothing, she shrugged, decided she had nothing to lose from simple trial and error, and pushed through the nearest door she could find.

Once she was on the other side, Mindy took two steps into the hallway and promptly tripped over something small and white, which yelped in startled surprise as she fell.

Mindy sat up and grabbed what she had tripped over. It barked, happily, and licked her face.

"Bolt?" She said, looking at the dog in surprise. Except, no wait, this wasn't the real Bolt – it was the new one, of course. She kept forgetting about that. Mindy couldn't remember this dog's name for the life of her, though knowing how uncreative the trainers could be she wouldn't put it past them to have just named this one 'Bolt' as well. Mindy stood up and looked at the dog.

"What are you doing here, you little mutt? I bet everyone's looking all over for you."

New-Bolt barked cheerily.

Mindy tried to straighten out her coat. "Yeah, well, I certainly haven't got any time to deal with you. Crazy animal, you remind me of the dog I used to have when I was a kid." She whirled around and took a step away, but stopped when she realized that New-Bolt was whining curiously at her. Mindy looked back around. The dog had an incredulous look on his face.

"What?" Mindy asked, defensively. "You don't believe I ever had a dog? I did! Stupid little Chihuahua; name was Columbus. The idiot was always running off, which is why you remind me of him."

New-Bolt whined.

Mindy glared back at him. "Yes, I was perfectly pleasant to him. Mostly. For your information, I had a perfectly happy, pet-adoring childhood." She hesitated, and looked away for a moment. Then she turned and glanced back at New-Bolt, who was still watching her and wagging his tail idly.

"You know, now that I think about it, actually, that was the last time I ever even thought about having a pet," Mindy said. "I mean, Columbus died while I was in college, and of course I couldn't have any pets there. And I went to graduate school pretty much right after that, and after _that_ I got my first job working in business . . . "

She trailed off. "Look, it doesn't matter, okay? Just because I had a dog and liked him when I was a kid doesn't mean I have to have the patience for you." She turned away, and resumed stalking down the corridor purposefully. When she reached the end, Mindy looked back, reluctantly, only to see that the dog had vanished.

"Stupid dog," she muttered, and pushed through the door at the end of the hallway.

The room on the other side of the door was dark, and empty. Dozens of monitors lit up the far end, and Mindy realized that they were displaying footage from the set of Dr. Calico's headquarters that she'd just left. She was in one of the screening rooms, closer to her goal than she had been before but still unable to find the people she needed to. Annoyed, she sat down in one of the swivel chairs left in front of the monitors, spinning in it aimlessly. On the third revolution, she noticed something out of the corner of her eye, and looked over in surprise.

It was a cat – one of the two from the show. Specifically, the fluffier, fatter one. It wandered up to the chair, and without really thinking about it Mindy reached down and scratched it behind the ears.

"What is with you animals today? Is it a jailbreak or something?" She looked at the monitors, and watched the crew running about frantically – probably trying to find the missing animals, Mindy realized after watching them for a few moments. She cast an annoyed look at the cat beside her.

"So that's what's going on _now_, huh? You guys are just causing all sorts of trouble. Not that it really matters, I mean. The show is probably doomed, if I'm honest. I mean, look at it now, it's ridiculous. If I had the sway to do it I'd ax the show myself out of pity. I don't get why everyone involved stays so sincere about all of it."

The cat meowed.

"Well, yes," Mindy agreed, not really paying attention. "I suppose it doesn't _have_ to be silly. But right now that's not what we should be worrying about! We need to get people watching the stupid show before we can worry about the quality of it, don't you think?"

She looked down at where the cat was, but if she had been expecting an answer then she found herself disappointed. The cat was gone, vanished without a trace like the dog before it.

"Ah, good riddance," Mindy muttered. "It's not like you were my problem in the first place anyway."

She turned away, and yelled in startled surprise as she came face to face with another cat, sitting on the counter and glaring directly at her.

"Jeez!" Mindy cried. She shot an annoyed look at the monitors, watching Malcolm in character as Dr. Calico. "Well," Mindy said, turning back to the cat, "I don't think I have to guess where you get your knack for sneaking up on people like that."

This was the other cat – the skinnier one that spent most of its time perched atop Dr. Calico's shoulder like some sort of malevolent, meowing pirate's parrot. It stared at Mindy silently.

"You're all crazy, you know that?" Mindy said, apprehensively. She looked at the chaos on the monitor screens again. "Although, I guess that should be the least of my worries, really." She sighed. "What do you think will happen if this doesn't work, huh? If the show actually gets cancelled?"

The cat watched her, still not making a sound.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Mindy watched the people on set; the actors, the camera crew, even the silly excuse for a director.

"They're all going to lose their jobs," she said to the cat, which remained quiet. It stared at her relentlessly, and Mindy sighed.

" . . . And _I'm_ going to lose my job too, aren't I? And nobody will even miss me."

The words weighed heavily in the air.

Mindy sank farther into her seat, and looked over to where the silent cat had been. Not entirely to her surprise, he, too, had vanished just like the other two animals. "Maybe you're all going back to the set," Mindy muttered. "Then at least some of this mess would be cleared up." She turned her eyes back to the screens, watching the crew again. It was, she reluctantly admitted to herself, going to take _far_ more than gimmicks and an extra episode in December to save the mess this show had become.

An idea popped into Mindy's head.

She grit her teeth, and tried to ignore it, but the more she thought about it the more it made sense. And it wasn't as though she really had anything to _lose_. And with the show in the state it was in, it was now or never.

Reluctantly, Mindy From The Network came to a decision.

* * *

" . . . Oh, and the aliens. We have _got_ to lose the stupid aliens."

Everyone in the room had been watching Mindy with shock for the past quarter hour. The director, especially, seemed about ready to let his jaw drop any moment now.

"But _Mindy_!" He protested. "We have _two seasons_ worth of storylines that _depend_ on the aliens. We can't just drop them like that!"

"You can, and you will, or else you're _all_ fired." Mindy eyed the rest of the people in the room purposefully. It wasn't easy to be intimidating when you were nearly a full foot shorter than everybody else in the immediate vicinity, but Mindy managed it with little difficulty.

"If you want this show to last, you've got to put in some effort towards making it something more than ridiculous drivel! Put some effort into it and maybe your ratings will stop sinking like a rock!"

"It takes more than just _saying _it," another one of the crew said. "You can't just decide that Bolt is going to be a smarter show and have it be so."

"You're right. It takes my say-so and _network leverage_. Try harder or I'll make certain you never write for television again." Mindy pushed through the crowd, glared at the assembled mass one last time, and then walked out the door and slammed it behind her.

An elderly British man was standing in the hallway outside.

"That," Malcolm said, "Was probably the most vitriolic positive change of heart I've ever seen."

"Whatever you say." Mindy wandered off down the hallway. "It's just an experiment. But I can guarantee you I'll be there to make sure they follow through on it. We are _not_ losing our jobs to some idiotic excuse for an action show."

"Well, it's certainly pleasant to hear you say that." Malcolm straightened his tie, absent-mindedly. It really was fascinating to see the most evil man alive transform into an affable gentleman in his off-hours, and Mindy was surprised she'd never really noticed that before. That, or just how persuasive animals could be even when they weren't really saying anything, or even the elusive, but still noticeable appeal of Styrofoam snow.

Mindy was starting to notice a lot of things like that. It annoyed her.

"Well, it'll certainly be a relief to work on something that isn't _complete_ rubbish, for once, at least," Malcolm said, cheerily.

"Save it," Mindy said, walking away. "You've still got the holiday episode to get through, after all."

Malcolm's face fell. "Bah," he muttered, at the thought of it. "Humbug."

"Exactly," Mindy replied, and turned the corner out of sight.

Somewhere in the back of the studio, three animals sat together.

"That," said one of them – the bulkier, fluffier cat – "That was the _best_ game of hide-and-go-seek tag _ever_!"

"Or close to it," the skinnier cat agreed. "Even though what's-her-face saw us. But I don't think she told anyone. Probably just forgot about it right after, more or less."

He looked at the diminutive white Sheppard dog sitting across from them. "You did good, kid," he said. "You're _way_ more fun than the old guy. Keep this up and we might even stop making fun of you for setting fire to the stage. Or at least make fun of you for it _less_."

"Oh, spectacular," the dog grumbled, sarcastically. "God bless us _everyone_."

"Or something to that effect," the cat said. It was as close as you could get, really, with set-backdrop landscapes and Styrofoam snow.

In Hollywood, though, it was enough, and that was what counted.


	3. Spring

**3.**

**Spring**

_In which we are briefly reunited with our heroes,_

_Our friends,_

_And Mr. Carrot_

_

* * *

_

Afternoon. Click.

" – _what I bet it is? It's a superhero, and it's the saddest thing, 'cause it ain't never gonna happen – "_

Click. Cloudy skies and warming temperatures. Raindrops on the windows. A comfortable nest, carefully constructed from a strategic combination of pillows and dog. Click.

" – _anything more pathetic than an Elvis impersonator? There is; the _wife _of an Elvis impersonator – "_

Click. The relaxed, lethargically bored sound of a remote control. Interrupted pictures and voices floating slowly through the warming air. Click.

" – _you FAT FU – "_

_Click_.

Channel-hopping in April.

The days were slow, now, though not without routine. Penny was still at school, even if things were winding down, and for the animals most days were spent amusing themselves in whatever ways were available. For Mittens, this meant sleeping. For Bolt, this meant absentmindedly trotting in circles around the house.

Today was an exception, though; it was the weekend, though, and Penny was home. However, it was also raining outside, and for everyone, that meant comfortable things and lousy TV. It was human instinct, really, even if it was an easily distracted hamster manning the remote.

Rhino busily mashed through the channels from the center of the couch. Penny sat on his left, more interested in penning a letter than with whatever was playing across the television screen, while Bolt occupied the space to his right, and Mittens sat firmly entrenched in Bolt. She was a cat, after all, and still considered the warmest spot in the room to be her prerogative. She half-dozed, half-watched as she leaned against the dog's chest, while above her Bolt gnawed casually on his old carrot chew toy. Mittens burrowed deeper into her self-made nest and allowed herself to purr serenely without restraint. It was a good life, all things considered.

. . . Rhino, however, did not seem to share her sentiment.

"This is impossible!" He moaned, staring desperately at his beloved magic box. "There's nothing good on! _Nothing_! No explosions or car chases or helicopters or Bolt or awesomeness or anything!"

Mittens cast a glance in his direction. "I thought you didn't like Bolt's show any more?"

Rhino leaned back from the remote, letting the TV rest momentarily on a brightly colored cartoon show. "I saw the Christmas episode. That was pretty okay. Not hardly as fully awesome as it used to be, of course, but I think it might just be getting better." His expression turned suddenly serious. "But the new season doesn't start until next month! _Next month_, cat! Do you even comprehend how much time of not-Bolt that is?"

Mittens considered the dog wrapped happily around her. "Not really," she replied, dryly.

"Ohhh, you just don't _understand_ . . . " Rhino said, and turned back to mashing through the channels.

* * *

On the other end of the couch, Penny finished her letter, signing it cheerfully. She liked that she could still be old fashioned about things like that sometimes, which was probably a good thing, considering how resistant the letter's intended recipient – Malcolm, back at the studio – seemed to be towards the 21st century. She didn't know if he even _had_ an e-mail address, though she supposed as an actor he'd have to.

Penny had considered Malcolm a friend since she'd first started work with Sovereign Entertainment, and now that she'd left she found her ongoing correspondence with him to be a satisfying way to keep up with the goings-on at the studio without having to actually be involved with any of it. She was, after all, fairly certain that a life of acting was firmly in her past, now.

Penny folded the written letter and stood up. She glanced at the animals sitting on the couch – it almost seemed like they were talking to each other – and wandered out of the living, toward the kitchen where her mother was doing a crossword puzzle at the counter.

"Mom?" Penny asked, poking her head through the door. "Do we have any of those cardboard mail tubes lying around?"

"I think so," her mother replied, looking up. "Do you need it for Malcolm?"

Penny nodded. "Uh huh. At that yard sale last week, I found an old poster for one of the movies he was in. The one with the crazy Roman emperor, you know? I thought it might be neat if I sent it to him."

Her mother stood up. "Well, I'm sure we've got something that'll work. Come on, let's have a look around."

* * *

" – _up your nose with a garden hose – "_

Click.

"Nothing!" Rhino wailed, in despair. "Absolutely nothing! I don't see how you can stand it!"

"We _do_ have the real Bolt right here, y'know," Mittens pointed out.

"I know _that_, cat," Rhino said. "But I require awesomeness! Bolt isn't being awesome right _now_, is he?"

"_I_ think he's being awesome," Mittens replied, leaning back. Bolt rolled his eyes, and set Mr. Carrot down on the arm of the sofa.

"Would you guys cut it out? I'm _right here_. It's not like I can't hear you – "

Bolt was interrupted, suddenly, as Penny returned to the living room, toting a long cardboard message tube. She didn't stop to sit down, though, instead simply propping it against Bolt's arm of the couch, open-side up, and then wandering upstairs, muttering something to herself about a movie poster and wondering where she'd left it. All three animals watched her go, and then turned back to each other once she was gone.

"Anyway," Bolt said. "All I meant was that if you're going to argue about me then you should at least do when I'm, I don't know. Outside, or something? Not _here_, anyway."

"But where would the fun be in that, Wags?" Mittens asked, grinning.

Bolt sighed. "But . . . Oh, never mind. I can't win, can I?"

"Not today, you can't." Mittens' purring rose in volume, just slightly. "It's raining outside and I won't have you shirking pillow duties. That's part of being a regular dog too, y'know."

Rhino pouted. "Well, if that's how things are going to be transgressing, then it seems I will be forced to seek out awesomeness somewhere else." He shut the TV off with a decisive button-push, and began the daunting task of climbing off the sofa, scurrying past Bolt and Mittens and clambering over the sofa's arm.

"Yeah, you do that Rhino," Mittens murmured, drifting back to sleep. Rhino was on top of the arm now, and bumped against Mr. Carrot as he prepared to make the daring leap to the adjoining end table. Bolt was quick to follow Mittens into sleep, however, so as Rhino made his exit, neither of them noticed when Mr. Carrot, now off-balance, began to slowly tumble down the slope of the sofa's arm. As Rhino slid down the table leg and skittered away across the floor, the old, well-worn chew toy slid, turned over, and finally relented to gravity as it fell off the sofa and into the cardboard mail tube beside it, coming to rest at the bottom with a soft, barely audible _plop_.

Bolt put his head down and drifted away, falling completely asleep just as Penny was returning from the house's upstairs floor, rolled-up movie poster in hand.

* * *

It was sunny in Hollywood. It usually was.

Malcolm, with no small amount of relief, was currently sitting outside and taking a far-too-brief break from attempting to take over the world for the umpteenth time as the nefarious Doctor Calico, a name he was far more than a little sick of by this point. They would want him back soon enough, of course – only a few more last-minute scenes to shoot before they had all the material they needed for the new season of _Bolt_ – but for now the old man relaxed in a folding chair outside of the studio, loosened his far-too-tight necktie, and prepared to indulge in the simple pleasures of parcel mail.

He was, predictably, interrupted.

Malcolm had only just managed to open the mail tube he'd received when a familiar and unmistakably short shadow crossed between him and the sunlight.

"You're leaving a bit early, Mindy," Malcolm said, without looking up. "Giving up on us so soon, are you?"

Mindy Parker (From The Network) halted in her determined march, momentarily. She was hauling a small rolling suitcase behind her, with some sort of expensive-looking cross between a purse and a tote bag balanced atop it. She looked at Malcolm, annoyed.

"I'm just going to New York, Malcolm, and you know it. I need to meet with the sponsors; convince them that the new direction I'm trying to take the show in is a good idea. If we don't have their support we aren't worth a thing, I hope you realize."

"Of course. I wish you the best of luck," Malcolm replied, ambivalent. He removed the tube's contents, a rolled-up movie poster, and unfurled it. A wistful smirk crawled across his face as he looked at it.

Mindy frowned. "I'll need it," she said. "I need to be on my plane by the end of today – _that_ isn't going to be any fun."

Malcolm set the poster aside and looked at her, one eyebrow arched questioningly. "Fear of flying?"

"Fear of _airplanes_. I have this recurring nightmare where I'm standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier and all of a sudden this big spy plane comes and – "

Mindy was cut short by her Bluetooth earpiece, which buzzed, demandingly. She rolled her eyes. "That's the director," she muttered. "Has to be. I have to go deal with whatever stupid mess he's gotten himself into this time. Watch my stuff for a second, Malcolm, will you?"

Malcolm offered a sound of vague assurance, and Mindy stomped impatiently back toward the soundstage. As she left, Malcolm rolled the poster back up, and was about to put it back in the tube, when he noticed something on the ground. There was a rubber carrot chew toy there, well-worn, with a cartoonish, smiling face staring up at the sky. Malcolm observed it with a look of puzzlement. Had that fallen out of the message tube? Or had Mindy dropped it?

He wasn't sure, but the idea that Penny would mail him a dog's chew toy seemed unlikely, and he did seem to recall Mindy having said something about having a dog. Or was that used to have a dog? Or a friend with a dog?

Malcolm shrugged. It didn't matter, really; the worst that would happen would be Mindy sharing his own puzzlement. He picked up the toy, squeezing it as he did so (it produced a tired squeaking noise) and placed it inside Mindy's bag. Then he straightened his tie, checked his watch, and waited impatiently for Mindy to return so that he could get back to filming.

Just a few more scenes, he thought, and then it would be over with.

* * *

It was crowded in New York, not that it ever wasn't.

Mindy did her best to maneuver through the congested sidewalk while simultaneously rifling through her bag. It wasn't easy.

Typical, really. She'd hardly been in the city an hour, and already she'd managed to trip over herself getting out of a taxi. The contents of her bag had been sent flying everywhere, and while she was fairly certain that she'd managed to get everything important back, she found it difficult to keep from double- and triple-checking, just to be certain. Finally, she forced herself to shut the bag. Everything she remembered having was there.

She sighed, looked ahead, and moved forward.

Farther back along the street, at the mouth of an alley, a bird pecked curiously at something orange. It was swiftly joined by two others, who addressed the object on the ground with equal levels of curiosity. They bobbled, questioningly.

Pigeons.

"It's, uh, it's a carrot," one of them ventured, nervously. He was unhealthily skinny, and molting furiously.

"I can see that it's a carrot, Bobby," a more heavyset member of the trio replied, gruffly.

"It's a carrot," he third bird confirmed. He tilted his head and examined it closely. "But, uh, this is not you average, normal, everyday sort of carrot, ya know?"

"It's definitely not," the gruff bird said. "Whaddaya make out of it, Vinnie?"

"Well," Vinnie said. He swiveled his head and stared at the smiling rubber carrot with his other eye. "It's, ah, faux, _capiche_? Synthetic. A mock up, a dummy, a, ah, a factory facsimile, that sort of thing. Ya know what I'm sayin'?"

"It's not real, Joey," Bobby tittered nervously through a cloud of feathers.

"I can _see_ that it's not real, Bobby," Joey grumbled. "Whadda we do with it?"

"Well, that's sort of a kind of tricky one, ya know?" Vinnie strutted around Mr. Carrot purposefully, examining the old toy from every angle. "I mean, if my ocular senses don't deceive me – which I'm pretty sure they don't, know what I'm sayin' – this here dummy carrot came outta the bag of the lady who was just gettin' outta the cab over there. But seein' as she'd be long gone by now and the prospect of returning a lost property grow rather slim, well, I don't really know _what_ we'd do with it."

"Do we even _haffta_ do anything with it?" Bobby wondered, shivering.

"I don't even get what it's for," Joey said. "I mean, why would you make a sort of mock carrot like that, huh?"

"Ahh, it's just a toy is all," a new voice said. All three of the birds jumped, but then relaxed when they saw who had joined them in the alley. A stray dog stood peering down at the birds. He was gaunt, and scruffy, but friendly looking in a ridiculous sort of way.

Kelvin the Labradoodle. He picked up Mr. Carrot and munched on the toy.

"It's a chew toy, _capiche_?" he said, through squeaking mouthfuls. "For dogs. Like me, ya know?"

"'Course it is," Vinnie replied. "That makes perfect sense, 'course it does."

"It definitely does," Joey agreed.

They wandered, as a group, down the alley, emerging into the light on the other side after a brief stroll through the shadows of dumpsters and old boxes and other assorted forgotten junk.

"Well, that's great, then, that really is," Vinnie said, beaming. "It oughtta be nice to have luxury like that, Kelvin, ya know what I'm sayin'?"

"I know what you're sayin'," Kelvin said, happily. When they reached the edge of the alley, however, all four animals were startled by a large, cardboard box being dropped heavily to the ground. The pigeons all took flight immediately, and Kelvin turned tail and scampered away, dropping Mr. Carrot as he did so. It wasn't until a good two or three blocks later that he even realized what he had done.

Vinnie fluttered down to the ground beside him and offered the dog a sympathetic expression. "Ah, man, I'm sorry about that one, buddy."

Kelvin shrugged. "It's okay. It was a short dream, ya know? But it's all right, I'll find one a' my own squeaky things one of these days, yeah? Besides, I kinda think everything bagels taste better than that thing did anyway."

Vinnie smiled, inasmuch as a pigeon could smile. "That, my friend, is the truth."

* * *

Somewhere alarmingly close by, a skinny, blonde man in a suit and glasses thumbed at his cell phone, nervously. In all actuality he wasn't really doing anything important, but he desperately, _desperately_ wanted to _look_ like he was. The phone beeped, rapidly, as he pushed random buttons with a nervous energy.

Two young men approached him, one skinny and the other considerably more heavyset. The skinnier man dropped a cardboard box of assorted essential road trip supplies on the sidewalk, scaring away a stray dog and a few pigeons in the process.

"Look, Uncle Sharkey, are you sure this is a good idea?" he asked. "Driving all the way back to California and all? I mean, you've been a little crazy ever since that kid fired you. That, and I don't think _driving_ all the way there is a good idea – I mean, last time when we came to Sovereign with the U-Haul like you wanted us too, this one kept hallucinating a hamster was following us the whole way." He pointed at the second man.

"It was real!" the heavier man insisted. "The hamster was real! He stole my Waffle World placemat! And one of my French fries!"

"Sure he did," the first man said, dismissively, before turning back to Sharkey. "We really don't have to do this, you know. I think coming to New York was good for you. There's plenty of actors here who need a – "

"Nope!" Sharkey said, dismissively. "Nope, nope, nope! It's all gonna be fine, kiddo, you just watch me! All you need is the right sort of leverage. Like, whenever I need my daughter to do her chores? I just tell her that messy rooms and cookie disappearances are directly correlated. Leverage like that! Works like a charm every time."

He offered a crooked smile, and then turned back to pretending to work with his cell phone. The other two men shrugged, turned away, and returned to the task of loading up the car for yet another Hollywood-bound road trip. Sharkey continued to be engrossed in his phone for a few more minutes, but then suddenly stopped as something on the ground caught his attention.

Something orange flashed on the sidewalk. Sharkey looked at it, blankly curious, and then took a hesitant step forward and bent to pick it up.

Mr. Carrot squeaked quietly in his hand. "Could it be?" he wondered, distantly, still looking at the old toy with an expression that wasn't quite recognition but certainly wasn't unfamiliarity. He examined the toy for a moment, then, almost as an afterthought, slipped it into the breast pocket of his suit.

"Leverage," he muttered to himself, and then turned to wander back to the car where his nephews were waiting, impatiently.

* * *

Time had gone by – not that the weather offered any clue of that.

In other words, it was still sunny in Hollywood. To someone who had grown up in a country where 'rain' was a safe weather prediction regardless of the season or time of day, this was mildly unsettling.

Malcolm was sitting outside again, now in celebration of having finally – _actually_, this time – finished filming for the _last_ of the last-minute scenes for the new season. Hardly to his surprise, they'd required several more takes since he'd left the week before, and now he was _really_ done. It was sloppy, really, he thought, rolling his eyes. The new season went to air in just another two weeks. True, they were already finished with most of post production, but to still be making last-minute filming tweaks now?

Honestly, it seemed practically unbelievable. Nevertheless, it over, at least until next season.

Malcolm was celebrating the occasion by writing back to Penny. He was almost finished with the letter when he was approached, unexpectedly, by one of the studio security guards.

Malcolm looked up, puzzled. "Is something the matter?" he asked.

"No," the guard said, slowing to a stop in front of Malcolm's folding chair. "I'm really sorry to bother you, actually, but it's just that you're the closest one here who's actually involved with _Bolt_, and I just need to double-check that this guy isn't actually who is says he is."

Malcolm stood up, looking concerned. "What's going on?"

"There's some nut in a suit at the gate, keeps insisting he's the agent for that kid actress who left last year. Wants to be let in for . . . I don't know why, like I said, the guy's nuts. I just wondered if you knew whether or not he actually needs to be let in."

"He certainly doesn't," Malcolm replied, dryly, "if you're talking about who I think you're talking about."

The guard nodded. "Absolutely, sir. I'll send him off straightaway. Oh, and he had this with him, in case you're interested." The guard produced an orange rubber carrot chew toy with a smiling face printed on the front. "Seemed to think it would help him get in. Something about the dog, you know?"

He handed the toy to the old man before trotting back off to the gate, and Malcolm examined it with a look of concentrated puzzlement. Well now, _this_ certainly was an unusual coincidence.

. . . It didn't really seem like one that deserved an awful lot of thought, though, and it wasn't as though he really had any use for a chew toy.

Malcolm glanced back at the letter where he had left it on the chair. Penny, on the other hand – he supposed she would always appreciate having something else to keep Bolt amused with. Malcolm looked at the toy carrot, and squeaked it, chuckling quietly at the sound.

"Well," he said, looking at Mr. Carrot with a sardonic grin, "I suppose I'm not Bolt's only chew toy after all."

* * *

It had been two weeks since the rainy spring day when Rhino had failed to find anything to amuse himself with on the magic box, and the only thing that was really different around the house was the very conspicuous absence of a certain squeaky rubber carrot.

It was raining again, just as it had been then, but today it was only a light, dewy spring drizzle, and patches of sunlight showed through the clouds. Not that that really mattered to Mittens, though, since at the moment she was more concerned with combing through every nook and cranny of their surprisingly spacious farmhouse. She yanked her head out from underneath the sofa and looked at Bolt, who was earnestly sniffing at the end table.

"I don't think we're gonna find him, Bolt," she said, doing her best to sound sympathetic.

Bolt slouched, and looked at the cat miserably. "But – "

"Bolt, we've been through everywhere in the house, at least five times over by now."

"But – "

"Bolt, I don't think you realize, this is – "

"Mittens, it's _Mr. Carrot_!" Bolt's ears drooped in mourning. "Mr. Carrot, Mittens! He was my first toy ever!"

Mittens sighed, and sat down next to the bereaved dog. "Look, Wags, I'm really sorry, but I don't think we're gonna find him. I can imagine how it feels, but it won't really help to just keep looking in the same places over and over, right? That's the definition of insanity, right there, and no mistake. Now, look, I think if you just got some rest, took a nap or something, you'd probably feel a lot better afterward. Whaddaya say to that, huh?"

"Yeah," Bolt said, with a sigh. "I guess you're – "

He was interrupted by Penny, who had just walked into the room. Bolt swiveled to look at her, and she smiled down at him.

She was holding something behind her back.

"Hey, Bolty!" Penny said. "Now, look, I don't really understand the whole thing myself, but you're never going to _believe_ what I just got from Malcolm in the mail . . . "

What happened next probably could have been described linearly, but the way Mittens experienced it was more as a sort of blur comprised of orangeness, squeaking, and an absurdly happy dog. She preferred to remember it that way, actually, though she wasn't really entirely sure why. Bolt, portrait of utter bliss that he was, tumbled across the floor to where Mittens stood and looked up at her through an ecstatic mouthful of Mr. Carrot.

"It's Mr. Carrot, Mittens!" he said, happily. "Mr. Carrot came back!"

"I can see that, Bolt," Mittens replied, smiling. "I suppose you're not the only one who's been lost and found now, huh?"

She watched him in his moment of happiness, hardly realizing that she was purring again. Seeing him happy made her happy, something distant in the back of her mind thought. And then, while she was watching him, another part of her thoughts that she'd done a _very_ good job of ignoring up until that point suddenly came back to life. And then, well . . .

_Click_.

_Springtime_, something in the back of her head thought, smugly. _When a young cat's fancy turns to _–

Mittens balked. _No_. Absolutely not. _Positively_ not. Unquestionably, unarguably, _unequivocally_ _not_. Right?

Right?

. . . _Right_?

Except . . . well . . . oh . . . but then –

. . .

_Bother_.

Mittens' eyes widened as she stared at the dog opposite her. Bolt, at least, hadn't noticed anything amiss with her; he was still fully absorbed in his reunion with Mr. Carrot. But all the same, that didn't change the fact that, suddenly, Mittens was going to have a _much_ harder time that usual getting a certain part of her mind to quiet back down – if she could get it to shut up again at all, that was. She grit her teeth.

. . . Well, Mittens thought, at least one thing was certain:

_This_ certainly wasn't going to be resolved any time soon.


	4. Summer

**4. **

**Summer**

_In which our story draws to a close,_

_And Mittens finds her way Home at last_

_

* * *

_

They were getting apples.

It was a warm day, a bright day in July, with the sun shining high in the sky and the summer breeze rippling through the grass and the trees and the old worn fences. Light bounced off the wide lake at the bottom of the hills, and the grass was full of blankets, which were strewn with food and happy people. Frisbees and footballs traced their lazy, curling paths through the sky.

Far above it all, the dog who never would have known any of it if he hadn't finally faced up to what was real and what was fake, stood at the top of the hills and watched it all with a happy, contented sigh.

While getting apples.

Bolt had a vague, if somewhat confused understanding of the holiday that was being celebrated – it involved a war, though for some reason hamburgers and picnics were integral to the remembrance ceremonies – but the important aspect was that it involved a lot of free time, which he, Mittens, and Rhino had been filling for the past half an hour or so by wandering off and exploring.

Which was how the apples got to be involved.

At the top of the hill there was a long-forgotten wooden fence, somewhere in the middle of the long process of melting back into the landscape, running through the grass and crowded out at one end by a cluster of shady trees. On the far side of the fence lay the remains of a family who had packed things in early; chicken bones, a half-eaten sandwich, and, balanced carefully on top of the fence but forgotten all the same, a shallow cardboard box filled with red apples.

These apples had swiftly become a source of contention.

Bolt, not wanting to let the apples go to waste, had decided that they needed to think of a way to bring the box back to Penny and her mother, who were spending the afternoon peaceably beneath a tree on the shore of the lake. This was easier said than done, however, as it involved figuring out a way to get the box down without upsetting it and spilling all the apples across the hillside. Rhino, unsurprisingly, had stepped up to the challenge with little hesitation.

Mittens, however, was a different story.

The three animals sat, Bolt and Mittens on the grass and Rhino in the sterile safety of his plastic hamster ball, and stared up at the prize, which, as it so often was, was only just out of reach.

Mittens sighed, and glared sidelong at Bolt. "It's not gonna work, Wags. There are better things to be wasting our time on than this, anyway."

Bolt shook his head, the wheels in his head slowly turning. They were only a few feet too short, he thought – what they needed was a way to climb to the same level as the apple box, but maintain a steady hand (or rather, paw) once they were there. He glanced between Rhino, and then Mittens, a plan slowly coming together in his mind. He knew, even now, that Mittens wouldn't like it in the slightest, but he'd have to try anyway. There were _apples_ at stake here.

. . . Though it certainly sounded a lot less silly when he didn't think of it quite that bluntly. Bolt shook his head, doing away with that thought, and looked toward the slender cat beside him.

"I think I know a way it might work. We'll need to work together to get it done, though."

"_Oh _no." Mittens stood up and took a defiant step back. "I'm not doing anything that involves teamwork." She glared at Rhino, who was already bouncing up and down inside his ball with overexcited energy. "Leastways not when _he's _on the team."

"Oh?" Rhino said, halting his exuberance momentarily. "You're lucky I even deign to trust _you, _dark beast of a thousand wily – "

"_Guys_," Bolt said, stepping in between the two animals and cutting their argument short. "Calm down. This'll work. I think, anyway. Rhino, I need you to hold still for a second."

Rhino saluted, eagerly. "Of course! I await your direction, Bolt!"

Carefully, Bolt let his front paws rest on the top of Rhino's plastic hamster ball, and then, with a few wobbly movements, jumped all the way up, so that he stood entirely on top of the ball, tottering back and forth. Once he had gotten hold of his balance, Bolt was able to move around form the top of his perch, shuffling his feet carefully and driving Rhino's ball about in little wobbly circles. Beneath his feet, Rhino giggled hysterically, tumbling one way and then the other.

Mittens sat down and rolled her eyes. "Oh, boy," she sighed, "here we go. Bolt, I thought we were supposed to be getting apples, not practicing to join the circus."

"I think I've got the hang of this, Mittens," Bolt said, growing ever more confident in his scheme. "If we do it like this, I think we'll be just tall enough. Climb up on my shoulders."

"_What?_"

"Yeah!" Bolt grinned at her hugely, his tongue flopping out in doggish innocence. "You'll be able to grab the box off the top of the fence. Uh, you might want to hurry it up, though." He wobbled, doing his best to keep his weight evenly balanced. "I don't know how long I can stay like this."

Mittens trotted to the other side of the unusual dog-hamster tower. "Nuh-uh. You're crazy. No way are apples worth this much trouble. I got enough trouble making sure you two don't kill yourselves without this kinda crazy hooey goin' on."

"Aw, c'mon, Mittens," Bolt insisted, still the very image of innocence. "For me, all right?"

Mittens faltered at that, spluttering for a moment before she could get her mouth around the proper words. "I – you – all right. _Just this once _I will go along with this nutty scheme of yours. Okay? Just this once. And then that's it."

"Well," Bolt said, as Mittens cautiously prepared to make the leap up onto his back, "technically speaking, this'll be, like, the fourth or fifth time you've gone along with one of my crazy schemes."

"You are _not _helping," Mittens grumbled. She jumped, springing through the air and landing lightly on Bolt's shoulders. The tower of animals swayed for a single, gut-twisting second, and then they steadied, carefully making their way towards the fence, and the box of apples.

"And besides, I don't think the times when I was _tied _to you really count, Wags."

"All the same," Bolt replied, still smiling. Concentrating on reaching the box of apples, he moved his feet, slowly, steadily, maneuvering the hamster ball through the grass. After a few bumps and one close call, he had managed to bring the trio alongside their goal. Now, it was only a question of Mittens being able to take the weight of the box without its added weight toppling their delicate arrangement. Bolt turned his head back to look up at her.

"You doing all right up there, Mittens?" Bolt asked.

"_No_," Mittens growled back, through clenched teeth. She was hanging on to the dog's back as tightly as she could manage, and Bolt suspected that if she had still had claws, he would be feeling them about now.

"We're almost there, Mittens. Just grab the box, now, nice and easy."

Mittens grumbled, sitting up and reaching out for the box with her paws. "Sure, easy enough for you to _say _that." She stretched; it was a long reach to the box of apples, but she could just manage it. Slowly, she slid the box off of the fence, easing it down and clinging to it with all of her feline might.

"You got it?" Bolt said. "Okay! Now We just have to – "

"Another successful mission!" Rhino exclaimed, bouncing merrily against the walls of his plastic ball. "Let all pretenders quake in fear! For once again it has been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bolt's magnitude of awesomeness is _unparalleled!_"

"Rhino," Bolt said. "Rhino, I think it's a little early to – "

He was cut short as his paws slipped, unexpectedly. Rhino's sudden movement had shifted the ball under his feet, and now, with the added weight of the apples making him top-heavy, Bolt was unable to keep his balance any longer. The stack of animals swayed deeply, first one way and then the next. Desperately, Bolt shuffled his feet in a mad attempt to get their center of gravity back, but that only sent them off of level ground, and rolling down the side of the hill.

. . . At which point, gravity finally decided to reassert itself.

For a few heart-stopping seconds, Bolt was able to stay upright on the plastic hamster ball as they raced down the side of the hill, his feet a wild, dancing blur as he tried to keep up with the ball's out of control spinning. It couldn't last forever, though, and after only a few moments their brief, accelerated journey was brought to a halt by and unfortunately placed rock.

Bolt flew forward, tumbling awkwardly down the side of the hill. Rhino, freed from the weight atop his ball, went soaring off in a wild, unpredictable trajectory.

Mittens, who was screaming, flew up. She let go of the box almost immediately, which, in elegant defiance of Murphy's Law, managed to land upright, bouncing and sliding and losing a few of its apples along the way, but for the most part surviving the fall quite well.

Mittens herself was not so lucky. She somersaulted in the air, and then landed, heavily, on Bolt's collapsed side with a pained _whumpf_.

Bolt raised his head off the ground, looking at the defeated cat in worried concern. "Mittens!" he cried. "Mittens, are you all right? Are you – "

"I'm _dead_," Mittens groaned, turning her head to face Bolt. "Ow. No, I'm fine, I think. I'm – "

She halted, suddenly seeming to take note of where she was; that being, draped bodily across Bolt's side. She scrambled to her paws and hopped several feet away in a sudden, panicked movement.

"Um," she said, nervously pawing at the ground. "That is, I'm fine. Which is to say that I'm fine. I'm fine. Because I'm – uh – well, I mean, cats always land on their feet, donchyaknow, so, no worries, you know? I'm fine."

"Um. Okay," Bolt said, standing up. "Did you see where Rhino went?"

A deep patch of tall grass further up the hill rustled, slightly. "Fully _awesome!_" it shouted.

"Over there, apparently," Mittens replied.

Bolt smirked, and then wandered over to where the box of apples had landed. The cardboard was dented and one or two of the apples inside seemed to be bruising, but otherwise it was perfectly safe. Bolt wagged his tail and smiled in accomplishment. "It worked!" he said, triumphant.

"Absolute success!" the patch of grass yelled.

"Acceptable results," Mittens said, and quietly allowed herself a soft smile.

* * *

As Bolt and Rhino happily pushed the box through the picnicking humans on their way back to Penny and her mother, Mittens trailed behind, her mind lost in thought.

She'd been doing a lot of that lately, mainly because she was having a much harder time than usual shutting up a certain, smug part of her mind that she _really _didn't want to listen to. Mainly because of a certain ex-superdog, and all the implications that lay therein. It was a thought she'd been having more and more recently, something she'd been trying to ignore, without much success. It was idiotic, after all, not to mention flat-out absurd. After all, who'd ever heard of a cat being attracted to a –

"Cat!"

Mittens jumped in startled surprise and whirled to face the voice that had barked in her ear. Bolt and Rhino had gone on ahead, leaving Mittens behind with her own thoughts . . .

. . . And, apparently, a tired-looking, elderly dachshund, who had waddled up to Mittens while she was lost in thought and now eyed her curiously, tilting his head.

Mittens glared at the dog. "Listen, buster," she growled, "I don't know what you're trying to pull, but I'll have you know that I – "

"Hey!" the dachshund said, sitting up in surprise. "You know my name! How'd you do that?"

Mittens rolled her eyes. "Oh, you're a _bright _one, I can tell already," she said, icily.

"Aw," the dog – Buster – said, looking suddenly crestfallen. He began to turn away slowly, wandering back where he had come from. "You didn't have to be all mean like that. I was only trying to make friends, y'know."

Mittens winced. _Oh, really great move there_, she thought to herself. Try as she might, there was still a little bit of the alleyways in her, bubbling back up whenever she needed in the least. She took a bounding hop, returning to Buster's side and offering him an apologetic look.

"Hey, hey, I'm sorry," she said. "It's just, you startled me is all. And you were talkin' like you've never seen a cat before, ya know what I'm saying?"

Buster stopped, and sat down again. "Of course I've seen a cat," he said, defiantly. "I talk to Whiskers all the time. She lives across the street."

"Uh huh." Mittens joined the older dog, curling her tail about her toes as she sat down on the grass. "You're not from around here, are you?"

Buster shook his head. "Nah. My people are out here visiting relatives. What about you? You don't see cats outside in this kind of situation all that often, you know. That's why I wanted to talk to you, actually. You seemed kinda out of place."

Mittens slouched. "Yeah, well, I think I might be out of place in more ways than one."

Buster tilted his head again. "What do you mean?"

"I . . . nah, you wouldn't understand."

"I might." Buster scratched at his ears and gave a thin smile. "I understand a lot more than you'd think. It's about the only perk of getting old, so much as I can tell, anyway."

Mittens considered that. She looked at the dog beside her – he looked sincere enough, if a bit simple. A lot like Bolt was, actually. She wasn't sure if he really could help her straighten her mind out, but she could tell he meant what he said, and that he would do his best regardless. _Such a typical dog thing_, Mittens thought. Slowly, hesitantly, she smiled back.

"All right," Mittens said, finally. "But don't say I didn't warn you."

* * *

When Bolt and Rhino made it back to the picnic blanket Penny and her mother had spread out under the shade of a tree, they found Penny alone, idly listing to the radio and tossing a baseball to herself as she lay on the grass. She looked up as the two animals approached, Bolt pushing the shallow box of apples in front of himself as he went.

"Hey there Bolty!" Penny said, sitting up. "Mom went for a walk, so it's just us for right now." She gave Bolt a friendly pat on the head as he trotted over to her, noticing the box of apples as she did so.

"Hey, where'd you find that? You didn't take it from anyone, did you?"

Bolt looked back at her, his eyes the very image of doggish innocence. Penny laughed, and tapped him on the nose.

"Okay, I'll believe you – this time." She laughed, and plucked an apple from out of the box. "Hey, don't look at me like that. Thank you, I mean it. I'm sure they're delicious, even if they are kinda out of season."

Penny took a bite from her apple and relaxed, laying back down on the grass. "I'm going to take a nap right now, but we can throw the Frisbee around later on, okay? I'm sure you won't have any trouble keeping yourselves busy until then."

She yawned, and closed her eyes. Bolt watched her drift off, and then turned back to Rhino, who was climbing out of his ball and making for the apples.

"I'm going to go down to the lake," he said. "Do you want to come?"

"Negative, Bolt," Rhino answered, taking another bite. "I've got more pressing issues to deal with – defeating my _hunger_!"

Bolt chuckled to himself, quietly, and turned to wander of in the direction of the lake. He paused, for a moment, curious as to where Mittens had gone off to, but after a moment he caught a glimpse of her speaking to an older dog. He decided against going over to her – she was a cat, after all, and he couldn't exactly expect her to take the fastest route from point A to point B, could he? Returning to his original path, Bolt strolled to the edge of the small lake, trotting across the short, worn-out dock that extended from the shore.

There were children there, swimming or simply relaxing, but they mostly ignored Bolt as he explored the reaches of the dock. There was a boat at the end, a tiny little fishing dinghy, and it intrigued him. Bolt had been involved with boats before, but he knew now that they had been fake; just set pieces that weren't like the real thing at all. Small and simple as it was, this real boat was something Bolt had been hoping to get a look at since their arrival at the lake.

Carefully, Bolt hopped from the edge of the dock into the boat, landing in it with a hollow _thunk_. The sudden movement caused the boat – which wasn't really properly tied to anything – to begin to move, slowly, through the water.

As Bolt explored the dimensions of the boat, sniffing eagerly through every fascinating inch of it, the gently rolling waters began to move it, slowly but surely, farther and farther away from the dock. The land receded, and the boat drifted – with Bolt, unaware, along for the ride.

* * *

"Anyway," Mittens said, pawing at the ground nervously. "That's the story. More or less I mean. As best as I can remember, anyway."

"Well," Buster said, speaking slowly. "That really is something. You weren't kidding."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what do you think of it all?"

Buster smiled. "Well, to be perfectly honest, I think I'm kind of jealous. I remember watching that show. It was usually on right after Bu– " He paused, and hesitated for a moment. "Look, I'm getting off track. What I mean is, I don't think you should be worrying so much. From the sound of things, it was good that you met Bolt – and if you managed to find a place where you can belong out of it all, well, it sounds like you made out all right to me."

"_Yeah_," Mittens said, still sounding nervous. She was growing increasingly antsy. "But I meant about _Bolt_ um, _specifically_ – you know, the_ other thing _. . . "

Buster chuckled. "Oh, _that_. Well, I – "

"I mean," Mittens said, cutting him off, "I don't know why I'm even letting myself _think _about it, y'know? It's _ridiculous_. _I_ know it's ridiculous, _you _know it's ridiculous – "

"Now hold on." Buster raised up a paw to stop her, and yawned. "You're going too _fast _there. Now, listen, I don't _know_ much, but I'll tell you what I think. I _think _that you shouldn't be worrying so much about this. I don't want to assume or anything, but it sounds to me like you've been through a lot. I can't imagine that being abandoned was easy. I can't say I know what it's like, but I've seen . . . I've seen what it can do."

Buster took a deep breath, and continued. "When something like that happens, it gets hard to trust anyone, yourself included. You doubt your own thoughts, even – no, _especially_ when you look at someone else and think . . . _well_. But if you're willing to move past certain differences . . . " He grinned, showing off a wide, toothy dog-smile. "Heck, even certain _rivalries_ . . . well, I think you'll find it's not quite as complicated as all that."

Mittens pouted. "I don't think that really answers my question."

"That's because you're still worrying too much." Buster yawned again, and picked himself up, slowly. "I probably have to get back, or my people will start wondering where I am. It's been good talking to you, though. I don't get to see that many cats, um . . . " He hesitated. "You know, I never actually got your name."

"Mittens," said Mittens. Buster nodded, and began to waddle away.

"Good talking to you, Mittens. And best of luck."

"Right," Mittens said, waving feebly. Once Buster was gone, she stared at the ground, miserably. "I'll _need _it," she muttered to herself. Doing her best to stay calm, she sighed, deeply, and tried to clear her head.

_Stop worrying_, Mittens thought to herself.

Okay.

Okay, she could do this.

. . . Probably.

* * *

When Mitten's finally returned to the small encampment they had carved out beneath the tree by the lakeside, she did so with a considerably lighter step and a much clearer head. She had determined, that if nothing else, she would stop worrying – she did so much of that, she thought, and it really was something awfully unbecoming of a cat. She couldn't ignore what the things in the back of her mind had to say about Bolt, no, but she could at least go about addressing the problem as sanely as she could manage.

Later, Mittens would kick herself extensively for being that naïve. Nothing was _ever _that simple for her, was it?

Returning to the Penny's picnic blanket, she found the young girl herself asleep – and Rhino alone, out of his ball and munching quietly on an apple. Bolt was nowhere to be seen. Mittens cast her eyes about in concern, and then approached Rhino.

"Hey," she said, prodding the hamster out of his food-induced trance. "Have you seen Bolt around anywhere? Like off walking with Penny's mother or somethin' like that?"

Rhino shook his head. "Nah, he went down to the dock, I think. Last I saw he was in the little boat, over there."

Mittens looked where the hamster was pointing. There was indeed a dock, a little one, only a few feet long and extending into the shallows of the small lake. Swimming children were clustered around it, and loose mooring rope twisted its way across the planks, but there was no boat to be seen – but then Mittens looked out farther, and saw that there was. The little dinghy floated aimlessly in the center of the lake, turning about in slow circles as the lapping water pushed it in no particular direction. Mittens couldn't see inside of it, but if Bolt wasn't here, well . . .

Mittens stared in horror at the adrift boat. It rocked, lazily, becalmed in the center of the lake.

"What are just sitting around there for?" Mittens snatched Rhino off of the pile of apples and stuffed him back into his plastic ball, all the while shooting terrified looks toward the abandoned boat.

"Calm down, cat!" Rhino said, shaken by the sudden assault. He stood up inside his ball, brushing down his fur carefully. "This is _Bolt _we're talking about. He's _more_ than fully awesome enough to get that boat back to shore on his own."

"Oh, you don't _get_ it, do you, rodent?" Mittens buried her face in her paws. "This is important, okay? We need to get him back before . . . before something terrible happens, all right? Now are you gonna help me or aren't you?"

Rhino seemed to consider, looking between Mittens' terrified face and the lonely, slowly spinning little boat at the center of the lake.

He sighed. "All right," he said, finally, "but if this is going to be a rescue mission, we're going to do it _properly_."

Mittens found herself worrying, suddenly. "What's 'properly'?"

"No rescue mission can be done right when it isn't done with _awesome_!" Leaping to his feet, Rhino zipped around Mittens, bashing into the side of the box of apples. He pushed against it with vigor, grunting in exertion but failing to move it one bit. Mittens watched him, confused.

"Help me out here, cat!" Rhino called, panting. "Help me tip this over!"

"_Why_?" Mittens asked, desperately – but she did as she was told all the same, lifting up the bottom of the cardboard box and spilling apples across the grass in tumbling red wave. With the box now empty, Rhino pushed it upright again. Turning toward the lake, Rhino ran with all the speed his diminutive feet could muster, pushing the empty box in front of him as he barreled to the shore.

"Hurry!" Rhino called as he went. "Get to the edge of the dock – we haven't a moment to lose!"

Mittens wanted to argue. She wanted to argue quite a bit, in fact, since she didn't exactly feel that trusting the direction of a rescue mission to an overly-excitable hamster like Rhino was a good idea in _any_ possible situation. Unfortunately, Rhino was also a _fast _little rodent, and he was already halfway to the edge of the lake. With no time left to protest, Mittens ran, scampering out to the edge of the wooden dock as Rhino had instructed and waiting to see just what the hamster had planned.

It didn't take long for Rhino to reach the water, but instead of stopping, he simply pushed on, plowing straight into the lake. The shallow cardboard box floated, and so did Rhino, kept afloat within his plastic hamster ball. Still pushing the box in front of himself, Rhino floated to the edge of the dock, cruising through the water in miniature imitation of a riverboat. Mittens watched from her perch, dumbstruck.

"Hop into the box!" Rhino called from the water.

Mittens balked, but only for a moment. She had, in recent memory, been forced to jump off of far too many things and onto just as many others, all dangerous, all positively ludicrous – but really, at this point, what was one more?

Scanning the dock, Mittens saw that a long, thin coil of rope had been tied to one of the posts. Grabbing the free end in her mouth, Mittens shut her eyes, tried her very best to ignore the _very large body of water _that she was currently standing over, and jumped.

There was a little splash and a somewhat cardboard-y noise. Mittens opened her eyes, tentatively, and found to her surprise that she was still alive.

Then again, there was still an awful lot of water around, _not _a situation that was particularly appealing to a cat. Looking around, and being careful to keep her grip on the rope, Mittens took in her new surroundings. The box held her weight comfortably, and while she could see that it was becoming more waterlogged with each passing second, she could still tell that it would hold up long enough to get them where they were going.

Hopefully, anyway.

Mittens glanced back, and saw that Rhino was still in the water, pushing the box through the lake in his odd role as a makeshift paddlewheel. "Aren't you going to get in?" Mittens called out to him.

"No need, cat!" Rhino answered. "I have _buoyancy_! And _somebody_ needs to provide our required propulsion. But never fear – _Rhino's _on the job! I'll have you there in double-time!"

Mittens looked back around. There was no denying that Bolt's boat was steadily drawing closer and closer, mainly due to Rhino's efforts. And a good thing, too – as they sailed on, Mittens prodded at the bottom of the cardboard box, and found that water was beginning to seep through at an alarming rate. Doing her best to avoid the patches of dampness that were starting to appear while still maintaining her grip on the rope, Mittens stared ahead and kept a steady eye on the boat. Almost there, she thought. Almost _there _. . .

"Uh-oh."

It was Rhino who said it. Mittens snapped her head around, a look of terror on her face.

"'Uh-oh'?" she called back to Rhino. "What's 'uh-oh'?"

"Um . . . " the hamster's voice answered, from behind the cardboard box. "Nothing."

"_Oh _no you don't," Mittens said. "Nothing is _nothing _once _uh-oh_ gets involved. Tell me what's goin' on or I'll come over there and ring it outta you myself."

"Oh . . . nothing important, really," Rhino replied. From where she was standing, Mittens still couldn't see any more than the top of his plastic hamster ball poking over the lip of the box. "Just a bit of, ah, _unexpected aqueous ballast_, if you will. A, uh, an ontake of fluid, if you will."

"You're not making sense, Rhino," Mittens said. She peered over the edge of the box. "You tell me straight what's going on or else I'll – oh."

Now that Mittens could see, the problem was obvious. Rhino's hamster ball was steadily taking on water, leaking in through the air holes on its sides. The ball was almost a third of the way full, and Rhino, diligent as ever, was running and splashing through an ever-deepening miniature lake in order to maintain his momentum. His eyes were determined, but a glint of worry shone through in them all the same.

"Rhino, are you nuts?" Mittens said. "Hurry, get out of the water before you sink!"

"No! Only a _coward _abandons what he's set out to do!" Rhino yelled. He put on an extra burst of speed, bringing their destination ever closer. Mittens watched him with ever-heightening worry, unable to keep a hold on the rope and to forcibly extract him from the lake at the same time. Suddenly, just as the water had reached Rhino's neck, Mittens felt a solid bump – and looked around to see that they had reached the boat at last.

"Rhino!" she called. "Rhino, we made it! Get out of there already!"

"Too late!" Rhino answered. Mittens watched, helplessly, as the weight of the water finally became too much, and the plastic ball, hamster in tow, was pulled under the water. As he sank, Rhino sat back, and offered a sharp salute, the same mad, determined spark as ever showing through in his eyes.

"It's been an _honor_," he said, grinning, as the water swelled up above his head – and then, just like that, his ball was pulled entirely below the surface of the lake. A few bubbles marked the spot where he had been, and then blipped out of existence one by one, leaving no trace behind.

"Rhino?" Mittens said, quietly, hardly believing it. The box she was sitting in was finally beginning to sink too, if much more slowly, but she hardly even noticed the water that was pooling around her feet. Finally, tearing herself out of her frozen state of shock, Mittens rushed to the edge of the box, panicked, staring down into the murky lake water. "Rhino?" she called again, louder this time. "_Rhino_!"

She was about to let go of the rope and jump into the lake – to Hell's Kitchen with her cat's natural phobia of water – when suddenly, on the other side of the box, there was a splash and a gasp, and something very small and soaking wet surfaced in the water.

"Rhino!" Mittens yelled, rushing to help the beleaguered hamster out of the water. She was so relieved, in fact, that it never even occurred to her that this was _Rhino_ – the certifiably insane, impossibly annoying creature who'd almost gotten her killed on _several _occasions – that she had allowed herself to worry about. But that thought stayed far from her mind, even as she hauled Rhino over the side of the box.

Rhino shook himself, lightly, and turned an eye up at Mittens. "I remembered that I needed to finish the egg salad sandwich I left back with Penny," he explained, simply. "Also, the door to my ball was stuck."

"But you're okay!" Mittens said, finally starting to calm down again.

"_I'm _okay," Rhino said, casting a forlorn glance toward the water. "But my _ball _. . . "

Mittens rolled her eyes, and hugged Rhino – so far as a cat _could _hug a hamster, anyway. "Calm down, ya big baby. We'll get you a new one. It's not the first time something like this has happened, anyway."

"Gah! Unhand me, feline!" Rhino, startled by the sudden contact, squirmed and struggled to get out of Mittens' grip. He grabbed the rope and began to skitter along it, back in the direction of the shore. "We're not through this yet, remember? Now, you rescue Bolt. I'll supervise from the shore to make sure you stay safe from any deep-sea threats that might arise."

Mittens smiled. "Yeah," she said. "You do that."

And with that, she took the free end of the rope, left the sinking cardboard box, and leapt into the boat.

. . . Wherein, sleeping soundly on the floor, was Bolt.

* * *

Bolt was startled out of his nap by an unexpected _thud_-ing sound, and the sudden rocking of the boat. He raised his head up in surprise, opening his eyes blearily to find Mittens in the boat with him, approaching with a look of concern he'd never quite seen in her before. He squinted. Was she in _soft-focus_?

. . . No, no she wasn't. She was _wet_, half soaked by the look of things – and then Bolt suddenly remembered where he was, and jumped to his feet, fully awake at last.

"Mittens?" Bolt said, dumbfounded. He straightened up, peering over the edge of the boat. Much to his surprise, he found that while he was asleep he'd drifted all the way to the center of the lake. He turned back to the slender cat in front of him, confused. "Mittens, what are you doing all the way out here?"

Mittens spat the rope she held in her mouth onto the floor of the boat. "I'm _rescuing _you, dummy," she said. "You're lost without a paddle, or hadn't you noticed?"

Bolt glanced over the side of the boat again. "Well, yes . . . it's just, um . . . "

"It's just _what_?"

"It's just . . . I'm a dog, Mittens. I can swim. I mean, all the times I've done it before it was just special effects, I know that _now_, but it was still real water. I don't think that . . . "

He trailed off, as Mittens' disbelieving stare grew wider and wider. Finally, she slumped in defeat, groaning and burying her face in her paws.

"Oh," Mittens moaned. "I'm just totally absolutely _useless_, aren't I?"

"Hey!" Bolt jumped to the cat's side in worried surprise. He didn't know what he had been expecting out of her as far as a reaction went, but this certainly wasn't it. He nosed at Mittens, trying to retrieve her from her own curled-up ball of self-misery. "Stop it, Mittens. You're not useless. Why would you think that?"

Mittens stood up and sighed, defeated. "Well, mainly because it looks like I went and panicked over _nothing_. I mean, if I'd only thought the situation over for even a _minute _– "

Bolt cut her short. "Hey," he said, "stop that. I'm glad you're here, all right? I couldn't have hoped for a better rescue. How'd you get over here, anyway?"

Mittens glanced over the side of the boat, toward the edge of the lake. "Oh, that," she said, distractedly. "Um, long story. Rhino helped. He's already heading back to shore, though."

Bolt laughed. "I'll bet he is. Have you ever noticed how he does that?"

Mittens raised an eyebrow. "Does what?"

"Keeps leaving us alone like that."

Mittens seemed startled by that comment. "Um," she said. "No. That is, no. That is . . . no. I mean, that is, well . . . no. No, I hadn't noticed."

"Well, he has." Bolt felt a mild stab of concern at Mittens' reaction to that – again, it wasn't quite what he expected out of the normally brash alley cat – but he ignored it, for the most part, since he was mainly focusing on how to say something he'd been meaning to get off of his chest for far too long now. He took a breath, unsure of where to start – and, finally, simply decided to go with whatever came to his mouth first.

He was a dog, after all. Thinking things through wasn't really one of his natural traits.

"I mean it when I say you're not useless, you know."

Mittens seemed taken off guard by that. "What?"

"I mean – well, what I mean is, it all seems like so long ago," Bolt said.

"What does?"

"_Everything. _Getting lost, meeting you . . . realizing the world wasn't the way I thought it was."

Mittens gave him a wry smile. "It's barely been a year, Wags."

"I know! That's what I mean." Bolt began pacing, nervously, back and forth across the bottom of the boat. "But it all still feels like it was only yesterday, because . . . well, mainly because I keep thinking back to when I finally woke up to it all. It was right after Rhino saved me from the animal control truck we were stuck in. I fell out, onto the side of the road, and . . . "

Now it was Mittens' turn to look concerned. "And what?"

"I landed in a puddle. And it was just like you said – I wasn't invincible. My lighting bolt wasn't real, it was just paint. I . . . my _entire life _was a _lie_, Mittens. Can you imagine how that felt for me?"

Mittens winced. "Well, when you put it like that, it doesn't sound exactly like something you'd take lightly."

"Right. Exactly." Bolt sat down, though he was still fidgeting with nervous energy. "Actually, I wanted to give up. Call it quits, right then."

"So why didn't you?"

Bolt looked at Mittens earnestly. "Well, I really would have. Rhino tried to talk me out of it. He gave me some speech about how the world needs heroes, needs that kind of inspiration, but I wasn't buying it. At least, not until . . . well, not until he told me that a hero always does what's right."

Mittens tilted her head. "What difference did that make?"

"Because it made me think of you. I still wanted to get back to Penny, but right then, all I could think about was how stupid I'd been, how blind – and how I'd dragged you into a mess you didn't even deserve to be a part of. And I knew, right then, that if I was ever going to live with myself, that I had to go and get you back, because you were the one who made me see through the lies. You were the one who taught me what real life really was. You . . . "

He looked straight at her.

"You _saved _me, Mittens."

For a long time, both animals were quiet. The boat ricked from side to side, gently, beneath their feet, and the only sounds were the soft whistle of the wind overhead and the hollow lapping of the water at the sides of the boat. Finally, after what seemed like an age, Bolt found his voice again.

He said: "Mittens, look, this is going to sound crazy, but I think that I – "

But he didn't get any farther than that, because now the cat across from him was looking at Bolt in a way he'd never seen her before. She looked – well, she looked _relieved_, he thought, first of all, but she also looked like she was thinking more clearly, like something that had been troubling her for a long time was finally gone at last. Her eyes, he suddenly realized, seemed a thousand miles deep, and her smile was wider than he'd ever seen it before. Bolt felt something in his chest he was unfamiliar with start to flutter, faintly.

Mittens took a step closer to Bolt.

"You know, Wags," she said, slowly, her smile growing ever-wider. "It's funny you should say that."

* * *

At the edge of the dock, Rhino sat, vigilant, staring intently at the boat that rested in the center of the lake. It was not, however, until the sun had already begun to sink in its slow descent toward the horizon that the rope tied to the dock was suddenly drawn taut, and the boat began to slowly haul itself back in toward the shore. Rhino watched the boat as it approached.

"Well," he said, to nobody in particular. "_That _certainly took long enough."

* * *

Hours later – after the rest of the afternoon had passed with very welcome normalcy, after Penny and Bolt had gone off running together, after Rhino had showed off an admittedly impressive magic trick (involving a napkin, a plate, and a slice of cake), and after the sun had sunk all the way over the horizon and given way to a wide, clear sky full of stars, Mittens sat, and relaxed, and was happy.

She was happy because she was warm, and because she was surrounded by the people and animals that she had finally come to accept as her family. She was happy, most of all, because Bolt was curled around her, keeping her safe and close as she rested against the steady rise and fall of his chest.

She was happy because she was Home.

"What are you thinking?" Bolt asked her, quietly, opening one tired eye and glancing in her direction as she stared up toward the sky.

"I'm thinking," Mittens said, sinking farther into Bolt's side, "that maybe you _did _have the right cat after all."

Bolt smiled at that. Mittens smiled back.

And, in rather typical fashion, that was precisely when the fireworks began.

_* THE END *_

_

* * *

_

_. . . Holy Wow. _

_That's it – it's over. I know there really aren't a whole lot of people who come by this corner of the Internet, but for those of you who do, may I offer my infinite thanks for sticking with it this far. This is, I regret to say, the last story I'm going to write for _Bolt_. Not for lack of caring for this lovely, wonderful movie, you understand, but simply because I've used up all the ideas I have, and being able to tell a good story is what matters most to me. Nevertheless, writing this story has been great fun for me, and hopefully at least some of you have enjoyed reading it. Each of these four tales has their own story behind their conception, which, on the off-chance you're curious, I'll take a stab at explaining:_

"_Autumn" was primarily inspired by some of the end-credits images from the movie (hopefully it's fairly obvious which ones). However, I also realized that I hadn't ever written a scene between Penny and Mittens, and I felt that was something I needed to do in order to cement Mittens' place in the family. I think Penny is a little jealous of Mittens for being a part of the story that Penny will never know about, but at the same time they're a lot alike, stuck in an adventure when all they want is a peaceful, normal life. Incidentally, the poem Mittens remembers is from _Bloom County_, as originally recited by Opus the penguin. The second half, which she has forgotten, reads: "I'll bet it's blown through others' feet, like those of . . . Casper Weinberger." ("Start over!") Also, the "green dog" Rhino mentions is GIR – your choice as to whether they actually met each other or if Rhino was just having an especially hard time telling fantasy apart from reality while watching TV one day . . . _

"_Winter" was a fun one. In case it's not obvious, this chapter is yet another re-telling of Charles Dickens' immortal _A Christmas Carol – _Mindy is filling in for Scrooge, Dr. Calico/Malcolm is Marley, and the animals all get their turn at playing the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, respectively. I wrote this one mainly because I wanted to give writing Mindy From the Network a try, and because after writing "Half of Your Adult Life" (which, for anyone who was confused by that title, is the amount of time Craig Charles estimates he's spent at Red Dwarf conventions) I found Dr. Calico's "out of character" persona charming enough that I wanted to revisit it. I love stupid actor allusion jokes, and there are a few in this chapter – Dr. Calico (voiced by the brilliant Malcolm McDowell) implies that he's had a bad experience with a bald man in a wheelchair (which he did, in _A Clockwork Orange_), and his nightmare about "Lori Petty and a bunch of mutant Kangaroos" is actually the mind-bogglingly atrocious _Tank Girl _(in which McDowell plays the villain). Meanwhile, Mindy (voiced by Kari Wahlgren) makes mention of having owned a Chihuahua dog named Columbus – a nod to _Steamboy_, in which Wahlgren's character Scarlett does exactly that. The Doctor Who references, meanwhile, are just me being silly and Dr. Calico being a loyal British Person. _

"_Spring" was an experiment. I'd seen a number of stories with the same basic format – detailing the adventures of an inanimate object as it changes hands – and I wanted to give something similar a try. Also, Mr. Carrot is far too important to Bolt to be left out, wouldn't you say? I also took the opportunity to try and give a little bit of spotlight to (almost) all the characters I hadn't written for yet – Penny's mother, the New York pigeons (and the unseen Kelvin the Labradoodle), Penny's agent, and Those Two Guys with the U-Haul. More silly actor allusions in this chapter, and a lot of them: The first three channels Rhino flips through on the TV are all Susie Essman (who voices Mittens) - specifically,__ her appearance on _8 Out of 10 Cat_s__,_ performing her standup comedy,_ and on _Curb Your Enthusiasm_, respectively. The fourth is John Travolta (Bolt, natch) as Vinnie Barbarino on _Welcome Back Kotter_. The "crazy Roman Emperor movie" Dr. Calico was in is _Caligula_, in which Malcolm McDowell played the title character. Finally, Mindy's recurring aircraft carrier/spy plane nightmare is a silly nod to Kari Wahlgren's turn as Rip Van Winkle in _Hellsing_. Mr. Carrot plays himself, and does a pretty okay job of it if I do say so myself. _

_And, finally, "Summer," which I knew from the beginning was going to be a Grand Finale of sorts, not just for this story but for my time writing for Bolt. The "apples" scene, and to a lesser extent the bit on the lake, are both inspired by paintings that can be found in _The Art of Bolt_, which is a lovely and charming book (there's also a little bit of the movie credits in this one too, at the very end). Buster the dachshund comes courtesy of the _Toy Story _movies, of course. I worried that including him might dent _Bolt_'s realism, but seeing as I'd already given Animal Weapons 1 and 2 from _WE3_ a cameo in "Waffles Away From Home," I thought, what the hey. I've always liked Bolt and Mittens as a couple, but I know that's not everyone's thing (nor is writing romance mine) so I've tried to keep it strictly subtext-only in my stories – even in this one nobody comes right out with it explicitly. But what with the Ending coming up and all, I wanted to do _something_, so hopefully I've managed to please at least most of you. _

_. . . And, well, that's it. Thank you again, all of you – thank you to the people who took the time to read this, thank you to the people who were able to offer me criticism, and thank you most of all to the wonderful, wonderful TigressPL, who gave me my FIRST EVER_ _signed review on this site, on the first story I submitted, and who convinced me that this odd experiment might just be worth pursuing a little bit after all. _

_May you all have the best of luck in everything, and may you all, one way or another, find your way Home. _


End file.
